[Roll Your Own Life] The Music That Shaped Me (Part 20)

Nine Inch Nails - The Fragile (1999)

This is it, the last entry in my Twenty Albums that had an impact on me meme that I was tagged in many, many moons ago. And I thought for the last one, I'd save my favourite album of all time. The one album I really couldn't do without - the one album I could never tire of.

Nine Inch Nails' album, The Fragile.

For me, it is the perfect album. It's long (2 CDs designated Left and Right) and contains a wide variety of musical styles. The first track, Somewhat Damaged, builds by layering industrial noises to incorporate Trent Reznor's softer vocals, to eventually ending with Reznor's shouting "Where the f*** were you?" over deep noisey guitars.

A few tracks into the album and we're presented with my favourite song of all time - The Wretched. Best listened to with The Frail instrumental track before it serving as a build-up to an angry shout at the world and how things just suck...

"The clouds will part and the sky cracks open,
And God himself will reach his f***ing arm through,
Just to push you down, just to hold you down.
Stuck in this hole with the sh** and the piss,
and it's hard to believe it could come down to this..."

"It didn't turn out the way you wanted it to,
It didn't turn out the way you wanted it, did it?"

God I love that track.

Just after that we're treated to the first proper single of the album, We're in this Together, which Debs and I always listen to when the world seems to kick us in the ass. Amazing .

I could go through the rest of the album like this and rave about how great every track is, but I won't. It's perfect. There are no bad tracks on The Fragile.

And then, Trent Reznor had to top it off with another couple of versions of the album. I mean, who else has three versions of the same album on their iPod for walking in to work? The Fragile: The Definitive Edition was released in 2017, with additional tracks and slightly extended versions of a handful of others. And then there's The Fragile: Deviations, an instrumental version of the album, with instrumental versions of all the tracks with vocals, and slightly different versions of all the instrumental ones (if that makes sense)? Anyway, it's different. It's great. And essential for a sad Nails-fanboy like me.

(I post this just as Nine Inch Nails have released another two albums of instrumental work for free to see us through the hard times of virus isolation. God, I love Nine Inch Nails. Thank you Trent.)

[Roll Your Own Life] The Music That Shaped Me (Part 12)

Nine Inch Nails - Pretty Hate Machine (1989)

Again, a little late to the party, I was first introduced to Nine Inch Nails just after I'd left my hometown and gone off to University to study graphic design/animation/illustration. The end of my art college time "up north" was turbulent to say the least, and moving away, being away from home, and the whole "trying to fit in" thing isn't something I do naturally. I hid in my tiny box room of the house I'd found for student accommodation and evenings were mostly spent listening to the radio. 

This must have been around 1992ish as I have this memory of hanging around in Gaz' accommodation listening to the noise that was Ministry (Psalm 69 had just come out and the radio was playing Jesus Built My Hotrod a lot) and thinking "this is really cool". This lead to him saying that I should listen to Nine Inch Nails. 

Pretty Hate Machine quickly became my favourite music choice for literally months and months, with the haunting Something I Can Never Have becoming my personal anthem in my angsty days. 

I went out and bought Fixed, before I'd even heard Broken (yeah, that can be confusing, but they didn't have Broken in stock at the store), and was right there on release day when The Downward Spiral was released in 94. 

My love of Nine Inch Nails has grown as their music has evolved. I love all of it, and would happily listen to nothing but NIN and Trent Reznor's creations. Trent Reznor is a god in my books, and along with David Lynch, is a constant inspiration to do and create whatever you want - and not worry about it being liked or successful. There will always be people for whom it resonates, and has a deep emotional meaning.

Pretty Hate Machine is not my favourite NIN album, but it is the one that opened the door for me becoming an obsessive fanboy, and I still love it. I managed to see Nine Inch Nails at Nottingham Arena in 2014, something I'd never imagined possible, and they still play tracks from Pretty Hate Machine (Terrible Lie, and they finished off with Head Like A Hole before their encores). 

Amazing gig, and not the last time Nine Inch Nails will appear in my 20 Albums that shaped me...

#RPGaDAY 2019 - DAY 31: LAST

Custom Doctor Who Micro Universe figure that's supposed to look like me - well, as detailed as the micro universe got.
Custom Autocratik dice thanks to the awesome www.chimericdesigns.co.uk

Day Thirty-One of #RPGaDAY 2019 - and the final word for this month-long exercise in spreading a little love for tabletop roleplaying games is LAST.

"This isn't meant to last, this is for right now..."

Had to squeeze some Nine Inch Nails in there somewhere.

What has LAST got to do with today? Well, it's the last day of #RPGaDAY 2019. That's an easy one.

Is it the LAST #RPGaDAY? Well, that's up to you.

Is it my LAST #RPGaDAY? Not sure. Next August is a long way off - things may change dramatically before then.

What's the LAST thing I want to say about #RPGaDAY this year? Thank you. Thank you everyone who took part, joined in, spread the word, got involved, made videos, podcasts, blog posts, tweeted, posted on the Facebook page, took photos, painted things, drew things, or just engaged with other #RPGaDAY-ers.

Without you, this wouldn't be possible and it would have come to an end years ago.

In the meantime, please keep reading the blog as I stagger through my creative ramblings.

Until next post - Stay multi-classy!!